The Officer and The Artist
by ghosteye99
Summary: Post-endgame. History repeats itself for Admiral Janeway, but this time it is she and an old friend who are the ones left behind. Janeway & Paris friendship (oneshot).


**Title: **The Officer and the Artist

**Author: **Ghosteye99

**Rating: **PG 13

**Length: **1,500 words

**Pairings: **J/P Friendship (there's another background J/ pairing, but I won't spoil the slow reveal)

**Summary: **Post-endgame. History repeats itself for Admiral Janeway, but this time it is she and an old friend who are the ones left behind.

**Notes:** Written for **Joywriter** as part of the VAMB 2013 Spring Fling secret drabble exchange. Her prompt was: _**First Sentence:**__ She dreamed of death. __**Character/Pairings:**__ J/C or J/P__._

**Disclaimer: **The characters and setting of Star Trek: Voyager belong to Paramount Pictures, not me.

**The Officer and the Artist**

She dreamed of death. Tomorrow, at work, she would speak of life and rescue and hope, should anyone remind her of the incident. She was good at expressing sympathy without allowing feelings from her own loss to surface, even to the others who, like her, were among those left behind. Especially not to them; as a Starfleet Admiral, she had to set an example and maintain morale, not weaken it by indulging her fears. Nine years, six months, and five days ago, the _USS Chixculub_ disappeared with all hands. Her husband was its captain, and yesterday after work, she'd privately commemorated their tenth anniversary.

New data about the accident still trickled in from Starfleet forensic. If B'ElannaTorres was still here, progress would have been faster, but she'd been on that ship. The team they had was competent, but she knew the day would come when that trickle of information would run out. After that, there would be nothing new for either she or the others to hold on to. She'd already begun preparations; she had PADDs full of ready-written quotes and paragraphs of commonsense lines and home-grown wisdom designed to encourage acceptance. Words carefully chosen because they'd almost convinced her to let go, at least while she was awake. Nine years on, Kathryn Janeway still dreamed of death.

Her office workstation chimed at eleven-hundred hours, and she knew who it was even before his name appeared; most workday mornings he called around that time to confirm a standing lunch date they'd kept for eight years. Unless she was away, she was usually able to keep the hour free for him.

She opened the channel, and smiled warmly at the tall, fair-haired civilian onscreen. Though Tom Paris once served under her, after _Voyager's_ homecoming he'd resigned from Starfleet to focus on his holonovels. She'd had been among the first to (privately) protest his decision, but the friendship of equals they'd formed since then became one of the lifelines that now kept them functioning. Beside his receding hair, time had been kinder to Tom than it could have been; he still hadn't quite lost his old, easygoing charm. He almost did, the year after losing B'Elanna in the accident, but not quite. Kathryn, as his friend, helped ensure that he never completely lost hope.

"Hi Tom," she said; "how's things going with the novel?"

"You mean '_Lost in the Stars'_?" he replied; "I think I've tightened some plot loopholes that Reg pointed out. I also must thank you for recommending your sister on the setting design; you should see her rendition of a Betazed hologarden. I think you'll really appreciate chapter forty-seven next time you're up for a preview."

"I'm looking forward to seeing you and Phoebe's latest handiwork when I get the chance," she said, and then leaned toward her screen and lowered her voice. "Chapter thirty-six still leaves me in a crying mess," she admitted.

"If I can crack the shields of a seasoned Admiral, then I know I'm doing my job as an artist," he said.

"Oh, you definitely have, though with a story subject like that, I'm afraid I'm an easy mark."

"You and me both," Tom said, "it's still a bit close to the bone; there's been times while writing it when I was worse than a baby."

She nodded. "It takes a while. You'd think after all that time one would've gotten over the worst of the past… and then, when it confronts you again, you still find yourself flinching."

"I suppose it goes with being human," Tom said, quietly. "Are you still on for lunch today?"

"I am," she replied, "we could try that new Italian replimat that's just opened on the shore."

"You and your replimats," Tom scoffed, "how about some real food made by real hands? There's a good Bajoran café up in the mountains. You should try their shrimp linguini sometime. They also make a great range of coffees."

"You've won me," Kathryn said. "I'll give it a try. Send me the address; I'll see you there in an hour."

The view from the café was magnificent, but it painfully reminded her of the desert mountains on Vulcan where her husband proposed to her eleven years ago. She'd tried to hide her resulting pensive mood from Tom, but he could be almost as perceptive as a Betazoid.

"A penny for your thoughts, Admiral?" he asked.

"This place brings back some memories for me," she answered; "do you remember when you learnt of my engagement?"

"How could I forget?" Tom replied; "I'd been helping Miral dress herself when Bee bolted into the room looking like she'd just seen the Borg. I don't know which of us was more surprised when we got that news."

Kathryn chuckled softly as she played with the remains of a tuwaly pie; "I was probably more surprised than both of you," she said. "I'd assumed that Chakotay and Seven were happy, and I never really thought that they could've been having problems. When Tuvok invited me to Vulcan during my leave to see his grandson, I didn't count on also running into Chakotay on an archaeological team in the Osana caverns, nor on him being single again. The rest was history."

"Tuvok is a master of strategy," Tom noted, "He'd probably been planning everything like a game of kal-toh."

"I'm grateful that he's such a good player at any game. Your turn now, Tom."

"Pardon?" he replied, trying to sound innocent.

"I've given you my thoughts, so now I expect you to return the favour," she said, using her firmest Admiral's voice; "what confessions do you have that you wish to share with me?"

Tom thoughtfully shuffled around a half finished glass of springwine. "Miral's almost fourteen," he said, "and sometimes I worry about her. She has no siblings, and without Bee around I get the sense that she's feeling very alone in the world, even though she has me."

"There's still far too few people of Klingon heritage on Earth," Kathryn replied, "I remember how it affected B'Elanna."

"It's now affecting Miral," he said, "I've been trying to help, taking her to places with a strong Klingon population to help with her confidence. I'm hoping it'll show her that being 'normal' doesn't just mean being Human or Vulcan."

"Is she still planning on going to the Academy? Starfleet might help her see herself less as the odd one out."

"She is," Tom said, "and she's also doing very well with physics in school."

"She could follow in her mother's footsteps," Kathryn noted, and left it at that; for she saw that Tom had turned his gaze back to the mountains, and he seemed to have aged several years in a moment. The memories still hurt him, more so now because Miral was becoming more like her mother every year. She'd often wondered herself how it would have been for her, had she and Chakotay had a child before the accident. She'd scanned herself two weeks afterwards, but her shots had worked; Chakotay left her with just his belongings and her memories, nothing more.

They spent the rest of the hour quietly studying the view, until her commbadge chimed and she had to return to work. They parted with a friendly handshake, a chaste hug and a smile, and a promise to try the replimat tomorrow.

That night, Kathryn dreamt of piloting a shuttle through a debris field. Around her she saw stasis pods shattered open to space, their frozen corpses still inside. She was looking for Chakotay, B'Elanna, Tal, Vorik, Golwat… any of her old _Voyager_ crew who'd been on the _Chixculub_. Like in every other dream, she woke before she could find anyone.

Next day, her comm. channel was flooded with unread messages. Admiral Nakamura was still online, so she replied to him first.

"Good morning Kathryn," he said, "You haven't yet heard the news from Deep Space Nine?"

"No, I haven't."

"A ship has just come in from the gamma quadrant with refugees from a Federation starship retrieved from stasis pods found in debris," he said; "they also found nearby traces of an old wormhole collapse."

"How many survivors?" she asked.

"Forty seven. I have the name list; you might need to read it before it reaches the broadcasts."

"Why is that?"

"The ship's identity's been confirmed. It was the _Chixculub_."

Chakotay's name was on the survivor list, but before she could call him, Kathryn had another urgent duty to carry out, and she was waiting for a reply. Eventually, dishevelled and still in pyjamas, Tom appeared onscreen.

"Yes, Admiral?" he asked, anxiously. "And apologies for my presentation, I've been up all night reading the news on the rumour channels. Is it true? They've found the _Chixculub__,_ haven't they?"

"Tom," she said, "Call Miral's school. Yes, they did; and before you ask, she's alive."

"B'Elanna… she's survived," Tom whispered.

"Yes she did."

"What about Chakotay?" he asked, and Kathryn smiled. Tonight, her dreams would be different.

**End**

A/N: Chixculub = the name of an undersea impact crater off the Yucatan Peninsula coast, believed to be the site of the meteorite impact that caused the mass-extinction which included most of the dinosaurs (except for the birds, of course).


End file.
